I am involved in our local school district affairs and can provide a bit more on the ludicriousness of this whole effort. My school disrtict (Arlington, VA) is consistently rated as one of the best in the country. We have been working for many years doing exactly what the NCLB wants. Yet, many of the schools in our district have just been rated as "not successful" (or whatever the term is) because in June, AFTER the district had completed its standardized testing in May, the Dept of Ed changed the rules about which English-limited students could be excluded. So, 95% of the subgroup was not test, and FAILURE. The rule is that ALL students, even if they arrived in the district 1 month earlier with NO English skills must be included in the test.
The benchmarks that have been set are totally unrealistic. This year, the pass rate is 60%, but it rises to 100% within just a few years. Our district has been working very hard for several years to raise test scores, both overall and among identified subgroups. It is very difficult and 100% is a guarantee of failure. As others in this thread have already expressed, it seems as if this is a policy which is either monumentally idiotic on the face of it, or deliberately designed to attack the public school system. Take your pick: incompetence or a vast right-wing conspiracy. I am not sure which is worse. Sam Scheiner "Simon, Steve, PhD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > I haven't been following the news on this very closely, but it sounds like the evaluation of schools currently being done in the "No Child Left Behind" program has some of the same issues as subgroup analysis and fishing expeditions. I suspect there are some differences also. > > Does anyone else see the analogy? Is there a good description somewhere of exactly what the tests are, what the subgroups are, and what the standards are? > > Steve Simon, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Standard Disclaimer > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
